Infosys invests in Indian drone startup ideaForge

ideaForge’s drones have been used by the Indian Armed Forces for surveillance, crowd monitoring and rescue operations, and have commercial applications in verticals such as energy, utilities, telecom and agriculture, Infosys said in a statement.Jochelle Mendonca | ET Bureau | December 15, 2016, 08:42 IST

ideaForge’s drones have been used by the Indian Armed Forces for surveillance, crowd monitoring and rescue operations, and have commercial applications in verticals such as energy, utilities, telecom and agriculture, Infosys said in a statement.

“ideaForge’s high performance UAVs, which have been designed and built in India, have significant potential in industrial use cases. We are looking forward to working with ideaForge and bringing their technology, expertise, and solutions to our clients to unlock new business insights from operational data that has previously been difficult to obtain,” Ritika Suri, Global Head of Corporate Development & Ventures at Infosys, said in a statement.

The ideaForge investment is the company’s eleventh investment out of its $500 million investment fund. Infosys has also invested in venture firms Vertex Ventures and Stellaris Venture Partners.

The drone startup was founded by three IIT-Bombay graduates. It was listed as one of the top 50 hot startups to watch out for next year by ET.

“We are very excited to have Infosys as an investor and a partner for exploring UAV services and solutions for global customers. This partnership will play an important role in our industrial expansion to address a wide variety of data acquisition and analysis needs,” Ankit Mehta, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at ideaForge, said.

Several people ET spoke with about Ericsson’s India operations, including its current and former employees, said the Stockholm-based firm has reduced headcount in the last one year or so across functions, in line with its global restructuring.